Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Explain: Unofficial Sources and Television Coverage of the Dispute over Gays in the Military

This study analyzes the way in which television news organizations selected and used unofficial sources in covering the 1992-1993 controversy over gays and military service. Using the Vanderbilt Television News Index and Abstracts, transcripts, and tapes of news programs, I examined all of the 155 television news stories devoted to the controversy. The findings indicate that the decisions news organizations made in choosing unofficial sources were the result of a complex interplay among journalists' understanding of newsworthiness, their narrowly operational definition of expertise, and the news frames they chose to structure individual stories. The news frame for coverage of gays and military service was interest-group conflict, and television producers sought commentary and explanation from advocates of what were designated as the "two sides" of the dispute. This narrow focus, in combination with journalists' operational definition of expertise, meant that television news organizations made almost no effort to obtain the views of social scientists or other more neutral experts who could have placed the controversy in a broader social or historical context. Further, the unofficial sources who explained the military's point of view were retired officers and former public officials, in contrast to the political outsiders who spoke for the gay plaintiffs. Thus the journalistic convention of balance was achieved, but in a way that legitimated the views of one side while marginalizing those of the other.